It depends on if you do and plan for some off roading or light trails. Honestly most of us wont take a 200+ kg bike on serious offroad as some might lead you to believe. Also good 17" street tyres are more easily found compared to the 21/18 combo on the KTM.

In terms of price, you are looking at a not so insignificant difference between them, given that KTM has massively slashed the price of the 790/Adv. Also parts will be cheaper for the KTM as it is now made in china and there is an abundance of both aftermarket and factory parts from taobao for decent pricing. If you plan to run high mileages on the bike, this is something to take note of. Triumph will be the more expensive of the 2 to maintain.


As for handling, undoubtedly the Tiger sport will be the more responsive bike of the duo due to the 17/17 wheels, but the 790 adventure is one of the best/if not the best handling bike on the road for something with a 21" front. Had a few stints on the 790 adventure and cant say i'm not impressed by the road manners. In fact, back to back with a Tiger 900GT with 19" fronts, the KTM was more fun.

The tiger sport does have factory option luggage (a bit pricey, but at least its factory and colour matched to your bike)

For reliability, the Chinese produced LC8C seemed to have addressed the cheese cam issue. My 800NK which uses the same engine now has 41k on the clock and my last VC turned out perfect. But take that with a grain of salt. KTMs are built for a good time, not a long time.

I personally have not tried the Sport 800, but the Tiger series T plane crank 900 does have an annoying vibration during cruising from the uneven firing order. I believe the Sport 600/800/Trident/Daytona all still run the old Y plane engine. It is smooth and power is balanced, however, personally I prefer the mid range punchiness of the KTM mill. Ultimately the Triumph will be the more refined feeling of the 2.

Both good bikes. Just depends if you intend to dip into some light trails or not.

As for mileage, the KTM will be the more frugal of the both and has more range due to the bigger tank...it will do almost 500kms a tank cruising at slightly higher than highway speed limits.


As another viable option, perhaps you can also cross shop with the Suzuki Vstrom RE. The road biased version of the DE with 19" front instead of the 21" on the DE. With rebates, it comes in quite a bit less than both the KTM and Triumph. Good if you want a japanese bike but the 800 does come in short at high RPM power compared to the other pair.

This post has been edited by jaycee1: May 5 2025, 11:46 AM

U Triumph fanboy.

But I agree, the tiger 800sports looks more refined. KTM design language not everyone's cup of tea.

Its a nice bike. That T plane engine does it no favours. The 900 is a bit top heavy fully fueled though, compared to the 790 adventure.

Thats pretty much the expected fuel range for the 790 for most riders. hahahaha. I know its temping. that midrange pull in nice. But the KTM fuel light does turn on quite early.

Ridden conservatively, you can get around 4.5L per 100km.

The 800MTX, a 790 adv clone, adds another 2L fuel capacity to the split fuel tanks.

This post has been edited by jaycee1: Jul 7 2025, 10:19 AM

I think its a whole lot of different type of vibrations we are talking here. The vibrations on an even firing 4 pot is very very different from an uneven firing tripple.

an even firing 4 pot has good primary balance, but its just the secondary balance that can be easily taken care off with a single balancer shaft rotating at 2x speed.

Uneven tripple is a mess that even with 2 balancer shafts, may not able to smoothen out. So it's everywhere... bars, footpegs, seat.

But yes, putting stuff on the handlebar can minimize the vibration YOU FEEL. It does not really remove vibration. Same as putting in heavier bar ends, it moves the harmonics of the vibration further outwards towards the end of the handlebar.


Related to bikes of this type, I recently tested the F900XR. Slightly disappointed with it. Especially with the going price (even with the 10k discount currently on offer). Expected a bit more.